Tuscaloosa City Board of Education eyeing soccer league

The Tuscaloosa City Board of Education is considering starting a soccer league for students in third through fifth grades.

By Jamon SmithStaff Writer | The Tuscaloosa News

The Tuscaloosa City Board of Education is considering starting a soccer league for students in third through fifth grades.The school board has received proposals from the South Tuscaloosa Soccer Club and Tuscaloosa United Soccer Club to start an elementary school league.According to the proposal from South Tuscaloosa Soccer Club, which originally brought the idea before the board, each elementary school in the system would have its own team. Schools would play each other on weekends and practice at least twice a week after school.“I've been involved with soccer in Tuscaloosa for 15 years, and there's always been a question of how do we grow it?” said Greg Madrid, who has children in the school system and is director of the schools' leg of South Tuscaloosa Soccer Club. “It used to be that everybody would go out to Sokol Park to play soccer, traveling to that central location,” he said. “One thing we noticed is that the numbers weren't growing. So we're trying to get into the schools to get into the communities. If the kids can play soccer at school, it's closer than traveling across town to play soccer.”When officials with Tuscaloosa United Soccer Club first heard about South Tuscaloosa Soccer Club's proposal, they asked the board for permission to counter with their own proposal.After hearing Tuscaloosa United's reasons for being interested in starting a school soccer league, the board approved Superintendent Paul McKendrick's recommendation that Tuscaloosa United be allowed to present a proposal to the board as well.“Our goal is simple,” said Lou Marino, a representative for Tuscaloosa United. “To provide soccer to kids across the community. The club has grown in the past two years, and we're at the point now where we're stable and have the resources to provide quality programming outside of our home base at Sokol Park.”Though Tuscaloosa United initially wanted to be the sole providers of the school soccer league, Marino said the group has had a change of heart. It now wants to work with South Tuscaloosa Soccer Club to create a league for the school system.“We have a proposal that we're going to put before the board,” he said. “It would be a complementary program to what Mr. Madrid is doing. Our board has decided that we don't want to directly compete with what Mr. Madrid is trying to do because it would only hurt kids.”Marino would not reveal the details of his group's proposal until it is presented to the school board.Board vice chairwoman Earnestine Tucker said she's 100 percent supportive of a school soccer league for the system's elementary school students. But she said she wants to make sure that it's made available to all students, including students who can't typically afford to pay the fees.“I think it is a sport that our children have not had an opportunity to participate in and I think they'd do well,” Tucker said. “I think our communities have been overlooked in terms of making this particular sport available. It has been a sport that has a healthy price that comes along with playing it.“I think it's been assumed that our children can't afford the price tag that comes with it. There are resources out there and people who are willing to commit to making the resources available for them to participate.” Soccer fees and other associated costs have been a major concern for some board members.Madrid said the average cost for a soccer travel team — a competitive team in the higher divisions — in Alabama can range from about $495 to $595 per player per season.The fees pay for uniform costs, equipment costs and player registration with the national soccer affiliations, which handles medical insurance for kids if they're injured and liability policy for the coaches, Madrid said. Field rental maintenance is typically another cost, but that won't be an issue with the school league since students will play at their home schools or other city school facilities.“We're working really hard to keep the fees down below $100,” Madrid said. “Coaches would be contracted with South Tuscaloosa Soccer Club. We provide a stipend to them, but we're not going to do it for profit. We'll probably go in the hole each season trying to pay for kids who can't pay. “We have to find a price point to get enough kids to register but also find sponsors to help kids who can't afford to play,” he said.Marino said Tuscaloosa United's goal is to make the program fee-free for the students. That would cause the club to lose money, he said, but the most important thing is growing the love of the game.“We'll have to do outreach to the community to be able to do this, but we already have the coaching staff needed to run this program with sufficient quality,” Marino said. “Long-term, we'd like to get into all the city elementary schools and particularly those schools that have the highest financial need.“We are blessed to have the support of Tuscaloosa and to find out that more kids are interested in playing this wonderful sport of soccer,” he said.Madrid said elementary schools that have shown interest in participating in the Tuscaloosa Schools League are Woodland Forrest, Southview, Skyland, University Place and Arcadia.He said he's reached out to Central, Oakdale and Martin Luther King Jr. elementary schools, but only Central Elementary showed immediate interest.“The concern on that side is that they have a lot of kids who are Title 1 eligible and even if it only cost $50 a kid for the season it may keep them from playing,” Madrid said. “So what I'm working on is contacting sponsors to help with that.”If the league grows large enough, Madrid said it's possible that elementary schools in the Tuscaloosa County School System might join so teams could compete outside of their own school system.“The county schools haven't fully agreed to it yet,” Madrid said. “I think they're handling it on an administrative side, but there's about four or five schools in the county that are pretty solidly interested. The main ones were Taylorville Primary, Englewood Elementary and Brookwood Elementary.”Madrid said it's possible to start a short season about a month after the deal's approved and start a full season in the spring.South Tuscaloosa Soccer Club started about two years ago. Tuscaloosa United is also only two years old, but it was created from two older soccer clubs, PARA and YMCA, when they merged to cut down on the competition between soccer clubs in the city.Marino said there used to be six soccer leagues in the city, but now there's only two — Tuscaloosa United and South Tuscaloosa.

Reach Jamon Smith at jamon.smith@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0204.

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